Lessons of a Heathen

I've noted this at times over the many years in blog posts, but it is worth noting again as I go through the educational process, again.

I'm a pretty independent minded person... objective but not judgmental and more self critical than outward.  That tends to put me on the edge of people's comfort zone... on most sides and opinions.  It's not a new reality, and I've come to be ok with it.  In fact, sometimes I like challenging the status quo, just because it needs challenging to promote discussion and defend the condemned, way more often than a single prostitute being stoned... and I don't just draw in the dirt when I do it.  That tends to give me lots of alone time for self evaluation and an independent foundation.  But, it also gives me freedom and peace and liberty to delve into necessary self criticism that many others don't have.

Having comes with a fear of losing.  When you have something or someone, you spend a lot of time focused on being good enough for them or taking care of it, and you can very easily become so distracted that you don't even ask yourself what you want and lose the ability to change, as others expect you to be a certain way... an image for you to maintain.  However, when you lose e everything, you gain yourself in much deeper level.  You can also address personal things that needed addressing like self improvement, change, and even confession... because.. who do you have to impress and what do you have to lose?

It also helps you to understand something that many will not know around you... something they will fight to deny, as well.  The darkness is our friend.  Happy and bright can be blinding, while you find much more clarity and sight when the lights dim.  It is in our struggles that we learn the most about ourselves and the world around us.  Sugar tastes good but makes your body weak.  Comfort can paralyze you.  Rest can make you poor.  It is only when we welcome struggle that we improve.  Indeed, I spent years waiting on God and goodness to come fix all my life without answer, but I have always increased my life in response to tragedy.  Indeed, even the money I have to move and had to afford a used car that saves me money from no car payment came from being hit in my car by someone.  Is God behind evil?  Good question... think about that.  Regardless, there is a purpose for the dark.  It's why it exists in our daily lives and nights, as well.

I don't want to make this too long, but I just wanted to note that if you are going through a struggle and are praying for it to disappear, pause for a moment.  See if it can teach you anything or if you have any changes that it may be prompting ... or reveal things in others that you don't want to see.  Consider how you can improve your life or what it may be showing you that you desire.  Then, when you have gained all you can from it, thank the dark for what it taught you and let it go.  Look and move forward, as as more mature and complete person and smile as you shine your own light in your own way to guide your path that lay ahead.

I don't have a lot of success in my life to teach you how to achieve, but what I do have... a lot... is lessons on how to keep going and rise up when it kicks you down, and that was the original purpose of this blog.  I will continue to be a journal of the journey that most don't want to consider, so it can help you when all others have walked away.  I hope it helps you not to escape your darkness but to learn to love yourself and others within it.

Single Freedom

 Single.. single.. single..

That was the embarrassing shout of the carnival operator at the ferris wheel in Never Been Kissed, where Drew Barrymore was pretending to be a high school student for a story.  I think she asked him not to say it that way, because it embarrassed her.

Isn't that us?  We feel embarrassed to be single.  In fact, if you find a "singles" group out there in FB or otherwise, it is probably intended to CHANGE that status.  I remember when I was in one of those groups and posted the idea that being single was ok all by itself and that you could stay happy single, I was attacked by the group leaders and others that demanded that you MUST be LOOKING FOR SOMEONE.

There is a funny movie that I should watch again called The Lobster starring Colin Ferrell.  In that movie, you had to find someone to mate with or you would be transformed into an animal of your choice.  In one scene the star says that a dog that he has was his brother that didn't find someone.  There is SUCH a demand that you must be a part of a couple.  I know that as a person that loves music, it is VERY hard to find music that is not about finding someone, hurting from someone, or such.

In my recent more cynical vibe, I have found much more peace, actually, in not seeking that.  We spend so much of our lives feeling inadequate for someone in the past, someone in the future, or in comparison to others in society.  When you finally say... fk it.. and just love yourself being yourself, it is transformational.  

But, even before that moment, I had moments of joy being single, and I am sure that everyone that was single or is single can testify.  I get up and can wear what I want.  I can go work and use my phone for fun and not worrying about whether someone is texting me.  I come home and can watch what I want, drink what I want, etc.  I can scope out someone sexy when I am out or look at porn or enjoy looking at sexy stars in my movies and shows.  I don't have to check with someone before I tell someone what I believe, and I don't have constant fear that something will end.

Will it ever change.. maybe.  But, I want you to get this... being single isn't a sin, and it isn't being broken.  It is being how you were made... period.  And, that person is good... so stop pretending it isn't.  Enjoy yourself, but better yet BE YOURSELF to the world.  Let that light shine, and stop feeling that you are incomplete til you find someone to limit you.  Single freedom is a treasure not to be surrendered, til someone is worth the sacrifice.

Reason

Reason has rarely failed me.  Emotional pursuits.. often.  It sucks being an INFJ, because I have to try to balance those, but as I look back over my life I find that the worst struggles that I faced came as a result of following some emotional or hopeful pursuit.  I don't just mean romance, but there have been a lot of times that I did something to please someone or out of hope that it would turn into something great.  It almost never did.  

I remember one time trying to sell life insurance for a month.  I spent an entire month going door to door to contacts and sold.. nothing.. made ... nothing.. for a month.  There has also been multiple internet or web or writing attempts to make money that resulted in very little.  I do appreciate the fact that I kept trying and learning, but the lesson learned after a life of following those pursuits and a life of using reason to guide my path shows me that I have better results with reason.

Indeed.. from an early age, I learned that I could accomplish things with my mind.  I got a lot of academic awards in high school, and I would graduate with High Honors all because I applied my brain.  And, every time that I had to overcome a budget crisis in my life, it would be my mind that would come to the rescue of finding a good path.  

This is going to be a short post.  I just wanted to note that "using your head to guard your heart" is not the only reason it is there.  You can also use it to guide your choices to have a more prosperous and beneficial life, and that is my goal, right now.  I'm not interested in finding romance or love at this point, and I think that my pursuits of that has in fact been the very thing that has distracted me from making positive choices in that area.  My goal is to be my best self, and that self will ALSO have a heart... but I will not be letting that heart make the decisions for a while.  I imagine when it is time to use it, it will make sense, as well.

Pace Yourself

I've never been a sprinter... part of being short and a little overweight.  It's part of how I got the bully nickname of 'thunder thighs" among others.  However, I had endurance, so I would run lond distance runs in track at times.  Do they even have track, anymore?  I don't recall hearing about it as my kids grew up.  And, if I tried to sprint, I might just hurt myself or pass out.  But, I learned that if I slowed down into a slower pace, I could go longer distance without feeling overwhelmed.  I'd apply this in running 5K runs, as well. In all those runs, most would take off in a sprint, but many would burn out and be passed by me, later.

The same can be applied to life, even though I forget it, often.  Most often, I run my life with intensity, driven to overcome immediate problems with immediate solutions.  When I can't see the solution in my life, I feel it is a failure.  However, most solutions that are long term take time to do.  

Plus, too much too fast is not always good.  I can definitely see that in my life.  When I tried to date or have romance or love someone, I always applied myself 100 percent from the beginning,  without even taking the time to know if it was right.  Then, when it wasn't, my love for them became an irritance to them.  I never got that.  I felt like one of their friends would mock them, saying something like...ooo someone loves you.. how tragic.  But, if it isn't a good fit and the gap of what we need and what someone is grows, the other one pushing it becomes a problem... or maybe the intensity doesn't allow enough freedom for love to develop.  Regardless, it is like sprinting above.  You begin with good intentions but shoot yourself in the foot by nor pacing yourself.

Recently, I began feeling prosperity coming in the kind of feeling that is almost always right.  So, I was doing lottery tickets, applying for high salary jobs and more, feeling that would produce it.  Then, I realized my CURRENT position and plan gets me there, just as well... just takes longer.  After my move and with my car owned and not on payments, I will be up to 900 over bills each month in Oklahoma.  Get that?  More prosperous in a poorer state.  Anyway... 900 x 12 months is 10 thousand over a year... in my current lower stress lifestyle.  Would I take a higher paying job, sure.  But, I still get there either way.  I just have to pace myself.

So, whatever you want, don't rush.  Take your time.  It's the best way to make sure you go the distance.  It reminds me of a signature I saw once on a writer group by an author.  She said, "Don't worry.  Don't hurry.  And, don't forget to smell the flowers."

Knowledge of Good and Evil

Why do we have an assumption that "good" is pleasant?  Why do we define a good day or a good year or such as something where everything goes our way?  We rightly are aware of those that would just use us for themselves and seek liberty from the control of others to be able to live our own lives, but as a society we have for thousands of years defined the very definition of good to be based upon our own desired outcomes.  I have come to realize over the last years, especially, that much of what we decide is evil is either for our own good or is good, itself, for the changes and growth that it creates within us.  Even when something is bad and sad in truth, it leaves us changed and matured for the better, often.  But, since traditions are passed down from generation to generation, the story is written or told to be that good is what we desire, and evil is what we do not, even if that is not necessarily objectively the story that has happened or even what prior generations wanted us to learn.

In my life, I have had a lot of struggles and things happening that I did not want to happen.  I have had others abandon me, and I have learned that I had to overcome much on my own... to rise when I fell, even when I didn't want to do so.  I'm not alone.  I believe that given enough time that everyone will learn this in varying degrees.  Why?   It is a truth.  

Imagine that you wanted to prepare your kid for success in this life.  Would you want to tell them to always believe in the best of others and rely upon others only to be hurt over and over again?  Or, do you want to prepare them for what society REALLY looks like, so they can navigate life with wisdom to prosper?  I am reminded of the movie The Village where a group of counselors created a society and didn't tell the kids born into it the truth but gave them horror stories about monsters on the outside to keep them inside, where it is safe.  As such, they became unprepared for the simplest of challenges that presented themselves and horrors that can be found within, as well.

So, returning to my point, above.  Is GOOD having no challenges, or is good found in the trials and struggles that educate us.  I made a comment on my social media some weeks back where I said that while I don't think it justifies a god to do it that being forced to experience evil can cause us to grow and take the steering wheel to create the kind of life that we want to have.  At the time, I said that the only way that you can justify it is to say that the devil is working for God, since the "evil" done to us causes us to become a more mature person and for us to create our own lives and more around us.  There might be some truth to this, and I think it is actually found in the Bible written by men trying to convey truths.

The earliest book of the Bible that was written, according to dating and tradition, is the book of Job.  In that book, the devil comes walking right into God's presence without restriction or binding.  He discusses Job with God, and then God has the devil strike down Job with sickness and poverty.  Society has deemed this as a trial that Job had to overcome... but .. was it?

Recall that in the Garden of Eden that the tree of whose fruit was eaten by man in the first "fall" was the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The tree was present... in the perfect garden that was made by God.  It was honored and protected, in fact.  Then, mankind was... punished, as described by many churches, today... by being given work for men and childbirth pains by women.  Of course this is all analogy, but what were they trying to teach?  Is work bad?  Is childbirth bad?  No.  But, those things that bring us good came with discomfort and struggle.  It was the beginning of the lesson of the tree... and it was GOOD.

We all must struggle.  I know that it always feels personal.  We feel that our lives are cursed and not as good as others.  However, over my life, I have heard people of all backgrounds and levels say that they are struggling over this or that.  So, my life wasn't abnormal to face struggle.  It was normal.. It was prescribed.  It's not always the same level of struggle, and more of us have more struggle than others.  But, that means we are more educated and wise.

Then, after we experience people letting us down, we learn to stand on our own.  When plans fall through, we learn to be prepared for unexpected changes.  When our dreams are shattered, we learn to be more realistic.  And, when we lack, we learn to create.  We are gods of our own lives, and that is the divine plan... much like the independence we want for our own children to thrive without us.  We create good by acting with intention, or we create bad by resignation, fear, and bitterness.

Also, as we learn to stand on our own, we will face judgment by others for doing it.  This too is educational, as it teaches us to stop caring about the judgment of others in order to have what we want to have to be happy.  That wouldn't happen if we were content to change whenever someone objected to us in a world free of conflict.  

Life also leads us to a life of being content being isolated.  It's built right into our code.  We do what we like.  Others that don't like those things back off some.  Not everyone wants the same thing, so we learn to accept others for being different and as we differ from one person or another we learn to like things on our own and be ok with that.  We were born single.  We will have many single moments over our lives, even if we are in a relationship.  In fact, it is healthy to have personal time, even in a relationship.  Why?  Being able to stand on your own is a part of the lesson, as well.  It is... GOOD.

So, to return to the initial question.  Why do we have the assumption that "good" is pleasant?  It is because we define good and evil in terms of what we desire instead of what will grow us as a person and make positive changes in our lives prompted by loss and discontent.  And, that definition will often be the very thing that will stop us from finding the happiness that can lie in the freedom of the journey and the growth and changes in our lives that we will find along the way.

 

Games

 I saw a post online about an old MS Dos game, and I thought I'd go ahead and give my perspective of the growth of games from when I was young to now.

When I was growing up, we didn't have a computer.. no one did, except maybe scientists or NASA or some universities.  Then, they started coming out, but they were very expensive.  I remember that I bought a desktop that was very slow, and 2 megabytes of Ram would cost you a hundred dollars and you connected by a very loud and very slow modem that you connected by calling a number... preferably local to avoid long distance charges.  But... that's computers.  I'm getting ahead of myself... will come back to that.

Games were different when I was growing up.  Most were not on an electronic device.  You can the Rubic's Cube, Rubic's Snake, etch a sketch, and so on.  There were electronic ones, of course... but they were not on a computer.  There was a red one that looked almost like a phone, and you had to repeat patterns or try to black out all the dots or such.  We had games on our watches like race car ones where you  moved a dot back and forth and pretended it was a car and so on.  That was ADVANCED for us, back then.

There were things you could connect to your tv to play things like PONG.. basically ping pong back and forth and such.  Then, came Atari.  You got a stick controller and could play very basic graphical games.  This would be replaced by Nintendo or Commodore controller games.  The graphics were very basic, but you could spend hours playing those games.

Then, you got computers.. back to where I was, before.  The computers came with games, but most were DOS based and not in Windows.  Even when there was windows, you would open a DOS box to play the games.  As I mentioned... it could get expensive and slow transferring to play them by internet, so most were bought and played on the computer, itself.  You could download them, but.. again.. took a while to download.

At universities and colleges, you could connect to other universities and government installations via Telnet and such.  This allowed for multi player worlds, but it wasn't graphical but text based.  It would tell you your environment, and you would type commands, such as pray to the goddess for a sword and so on.  At universities, you could also chat with others via IRC... inter relay chat... but that would become taboo and banned, as you could find x rated groups and pics on there and more.  Usenet would replace it, but likewise there was very little moderation and chats got very toxic.

Slowly, graphics increased in the DOS games, and you got to an age of side scrolling shooters, which let you play games like the old Double Dragon and Pitfall that we used to play on Nintendo.  I recall one was called Vinyl Goddess From Mars, and it had a very little pixelated woman in a sexy corset... as growing boy and young adult, you had to know I would know all about that one.  Ha.

Then, came the earliest versions of gaming consoles.  You could rent one at the video store, just like a video, with a deposit.  The games were higher versions of graphics than before, and you could build up worlds to play, but they were small characters and much less graphics than now.  But, I remember spending DAYS playing things like Warcraft, Starcraft, Command and Conquer, and flying games.  As the graphics increased, more complex games were possible.  I remember working night shift in the military at a duty station, and we played DOA for hours through the night.

Now, of course, game systems and graphics are beyond anything like back then.  The prices also went up, and I haven't been able to afford one for a long time with life changes and budget challenges.  I think that may change this summer.  I bought games for my children, though... WII, Switch, etc.  I do play some on my computer, some times.  I have a Minecraft game bought, but I don't want to hog the extended stay internet.  I play games on my phone, sometimes.  But, I look forward to exploring what all is out there in the future, as I am able.  Why not?  The tv series based on games have very complex plots, so it might be very worth it to try.

Change

We all know that famous line from The Hobbit where Bilbo announced, "I'm going on an adventure."  Adventures are rarely defined and always scary.  You don't know what lies ahead, and you will face a change in your surroundings and company along the way, but ... even more... you will find a change in yourself will accompany it.

When I first went into Basic training for the Army, I thought it was pure torture.  The first few weeks are called "hell weeks" for a reason.  The whole purpose of those weeks and basic, itself, was to break you down so that you could be built back up.  I fully believe that today's basic is probably a different experience than it was when I went through it.  We endured a lot back then in our lives that would never be allowed in our current day, and that is a shame to a degree.  When your supports are gone, and it is just you versus failure, You discover parts of yourself that you never knew existed.  I remember the pride that I felt when I was in my final weeks, and I thought to myself... I did it.  I COULD DO it, after all.  My Basic training graduation brought more pride in myself than any other graduation or award in my life, because I found the strength to do it when my muscles were literally shaking in my showers at the end of the day.

I exited that training a different person than I was when I entered that training.  I entered scared and unsure.  I left feeling I could conquer and do ANYTHING if I put my mind to it.. a belief and drive that would carry me through many challenges over my life.  You need that confidence to become more than you are, and no one else will give it to you.

Today, I was thinking about how when I am delivering there is no guarantee for making enough money, each day.  I remembered that in my first few years of doing it, I would drive all day under a cloud of stress and anxiety that I would make enough to pay my bills.  Each time there was a lull, I would feel all the fears of failure come upon me.  Then, I would over the years discover that if I just kept going and learn from good areas vs bad areas and so on, I would always make my budget.  The same is true for overcoming challenges that hit me.... I used to stress so hard about them.  But, I learned over my life that it really didn't matter if I did, but I would still overcome, every time.  So... the next time, I just waited .... waited for the next delivery... waited to learn how I would overcome.. knowing I would.  It became an adventure, instead of a crisis.

But, change .. changes you.  Growth changes you.  You become a new person, more confident and more capable with each change.  It's the same you... just matured like a fine wine.  

It always amazes me that people look at god or gods and say... THIS is how they are, and they do not change.  Yet, literature about gods show them being very different to different people and over time.  But, the QUALITIES remain... only mixed in a more mature balance.  The same is true for us.  How we are is very different than when we were 11.  Remember how ignorant we were back then and all the false assumptions we had of society?  Unfortunately, many adults continue to live that naive, but others have matured over time.  Some would call it cynical, but I tend to see it as realistic, since it is based... in fact... in reality.

Don't feel bad that you lose your once innocent spark.  If you were to regain it, you would be once again bait for others to misuse.  Even Jesus says be wise as serpents but innocent as doves.  I would take issue with the innocent part (probably inserted by some monk along the way), since even Jesus overturned money tables.  Wisdom is a viture, and it doesn't come from roses and rainbows.  It comes from trials, which even the epistles say will make you refined and mature. 

Change is a good thing... both in your life and in yourself.  YOU are an adventure, and the sooner you forgive yourself for beginning the journey, the sooner you can rest in the comfort that you know YOU will remain and grow in whatever you face along the way.